Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons Announces Resignation

Acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director Todd Lyons has announced he will resign from his post, the latest departure in the administration’s immigration-enforcement area.

Lyons submitted his resignation to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin on Thursday and will accept a job in the private sector, Fox News reported. He will stay on to help with the transition through May 31.

“Director Lyons has been a great leader of ICE and key player in helping the Trump administration remove murderers, rapists, pedophiles, terrorists and gang members from American communities,” Mullin said in a statement to Fox News. “He jumpstarted an agency that had not been allowed to do its job for four years. Thanks to his leadership, American communities are safer.”

Lyons is the latest official involved in President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement efforts to leave the administration. In March, Border Patrol Commander-at-Large Gregory Bovino announced that he was retiring. Also in March, President Trump fired Kristi Noem as Department of Homeland Security secretary.

Both of those changes happened following the high-profile shooting deaths of two U.S. citizens in Minnesota during immigration operations in January.

In the last fiscal year, from October 2024 through September 2025, the U.S. deported about 442,000 people, according to Axios. Some of that time period overlapped with President Biden’s tenure. That figure was included by ICE in a budget justification report.

Fox News reported that the total number of individuals deported since Trump took office was around 584,000.

However, since the January shootings and the changes in leadership, average daily immigration detentions have declined by about 12 percent, from a high of about 72,000 in January down to about 63,000 in March, CBS News reported.

Lyons worked for ICE for more than 20 years, Fox News noted.

“Todd has served selflessly as a highly respected and effective acting Director of U.S. ICE,” Trump’s border czar Tom Homan told Fox News. “Under his leadership, ICE achieved a record number of removals in the first year of this Administration, despite unprecedented challenges, delivering on the President’s promise to deport illegal aliens who have no right to be in the U.S., especially those that are public safety risks or pose a threat to our national security.”